Rating:
* * * +
Type: Show and ride
Time: 15 minutes, ride portion is 3 minutes
Kelly says: Best for the ride
If you’ve come to Earthquake — The Big One for yet another shake and bake thrill ride, be patient. You’ll get your chills and thrills in due time, but first there is some mild “edutainment” about what makes the special effects in films so special.
The experience begins in a theater lobby displaying a fascinating collection of sepia-toned photographs taken shortly after the great San Francisco quake of 1906. Also displayed here are the matte paintings used in the making of Earthquake. Matte paintings are painstakingly realistic paintings on glass, with a key area blacked out.
A Universal aide mounts a podium and narrates a brief demonstration of how weather is simulated in films. The next order of business is to choose some in the crowd for special business. The selection process involves asking for volunteers, cajoling and, if necessary, dragooning people into service. If you’re interested in becoming part of the show, standing near the podium may help.
When the three doors at the back of the lobby open, the crowd files into a long narrow room, which serves as a stand-up movie theater. A short film featuring Charlton Heston, star of the original Earthquake, describes some of the techniques used to conjure up the total destruction of Hollywood for the film as well as other disaster effects. Most fascinating is the way high-speed photography lets the filmmaker slow down the snapping of a building and produce a startlingly realistic sequence.
As you file into the next room, you enter a larger theater, and this time you get to sit on benches. Here is where the casting session you saw in the staging area pays off. Before you is a set depicting two sets. To the left, in front of an electric blue background, is a mock-up of the conning tower of a submarine, which has nothing to do with Earthquake. To the right is a three-story high set representing the demolished stairwell of a high-rise building, which actually does echo a scene in the film, although you’d never guess it from the presentation here.
The volunteers are used to illustrate “blue screen” techniques and the use of stunt doubles. I don’t want to give away what happens next, but suffice it to say the results are mildly surprising, informative, and funny in approximately equal measure. When the demonstration is over, the audience is ushered in to the final phase of the Earthquake experience.
This is the part most people come for, a simulated ride aboard San Francisco’s BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit). The train (with open sides and clear plastic roof) pulls out of the Oakland station, enters the tunnel under the Bay, and soon emerges in the Embarcadero station. There is an ominous rumble and the train’s P.A. system announces, with the false optimism that is something of a running theme in these rides, that this is just a minor tremor and there’s nothing to worry about. Hah!
Soon the earthquake reaches eight on the Richter scale and the Embarcadero station begins to artfully fall apart. Floors buckle and ceilings shatter. The car you’re in jerks upward, while the car in front of you drops and tilts perilously. Then the entire roof caves in on one side, exposing the street above. A propane tanker truck, caught in the quake, slides into the hole directly towards us. The only thing that prevents it from slamming into the train is a steel beam, which impales the truck and causes it to burst into flame. Next, what looks like the entire contents of San Francisco Bay comes pouring down the stairs on the other side. And it’s still not over. An oncoming train barrels into the station directly at us, but the buckled track sets it on a trajectory that narrowly misses us.
All too soon, the terror is over and the train backs out of the station, returning us to “Oakland.” As it backs out, you can see the Embarcadero station methodically reconstruct itself in preparation for the next “take.”
The best seats in the house. The train holds about 200 people and is divided into three sections. The first section (that is, the car to the far left as you enter the BART station), has its seats facing backwards. The other two sections have seats facing forward. This arrangement assures that people in the first section won’t have to turn around to see most of the special effects the ride holds in store. The front of each section has a clear plastic panel but the view is somewhat obstructed. Avoid the first two rows of a section, if possible. I have found that the best view is to be had in the middle of the second car. The major attraction for those sitting on the right (as the train enters the tunnel) is the flood, which can get a few people wet. The more spectacular explosion of the propane tanker and the wreck of the oncoming train are best viewed from the left. As always, the outside seats are the primo location.
While the ride is great fun, Earthquake — The Big One suffers from the rushed and perfunctory edutainment portion. It used to be longer and more interesting, but it seems to have been sacrificed in the cause of increasing throughput.
Back
to Chapter Contents
Didn't find what you were looking for? Try a Google search.
|
